Monday, August 23, 2010

It's Name that Movie Monday! Challenge #9!

It's time for Challenge #9 here at the ol' Arcana. Can you identify this week's mystery photo, scanned direct from The Holecheck Archives? If you think you recognize it, post a comment below. As the week goes on, if no one guesses correctly (which hasn't been a problem lately... Challenge #8 was nailed in ten minutes flat!) I'll begin adding some pretty useless hints. Easy, right?

Here ya' go -- good luck!

UPDATE:

Congrats to Todd Bridges for finally identifying Juan Lopez Moctezuma's The Mansion of Madness (1973) after a record-setting 26-day stint! Based on Edgar Allan Poe's 'The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether,' the film is an inmates-take-over-the-asylum piece, spiced up considerably with the director's surreal touches (he had previously collaborated with both Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal) and some exceptional production design and locations. While it doesn't reach the insane heights of his later Alucarda(then again, what does?), it's still an interesting movie well worth checking out for lovers of the weird and wild.

Group 1 International released a slightly trimmed version Stateside in 1976 under the more exploitative handle Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon, waiting a short time before pairing it with other acquisitions like Amuck (see Challenge #2). It fared pretty well on VHS, with two issues in the '80s; one by Catalina Home Video, and later by Magnum Entertainment. (The former definitely more rare than the latter.)

These transfers were recycled into the DVD age through numerous budget-bin companies, and The Mansion of Madness didn't see a proper disc until 2005 when genre saviors Mondo Macabro cleaned it up for a nice, new, full-length special edition. Their remastered presentation really adds to one's appreciation of the visuals, and they've supplemented it with several good extras, including a look at the director's work, a tribute by Guillermo del Toro, and more. Be sure and give it a chance!